1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording and/or reproducing apparatus (which performs at least one of recording and reproduction of information) provided with an optical card carrying mechanism for carrying an optical card, being an information recording medium, onto a carriage.
2. Related Background Art
There are magnetooptical disks, optical tapes, optical cards, etc. conventionally known as information recording media. In information recording and/or reproducing apparatus for recording or reproducing information on an optical card, an example of the optical card carrying mechanism for carrying the optical card onto the carriage and discharging it from the carriage is one as shown in FIG. 1. Describing it, a guide plate 5 is provided in such an arrangement that it has a card insertion slot 1 for an optical card C to be inserted therethrough in the longitudinal direction thereof at the fore end, a shutter 3 which opens and closes by the action of an action of sensor 2 at the card insertion slot 1, and a carrying path 4 communicating with the card insertion slot 1; and that on the rear end side of the guide plate 5 a carriage 6 for the card C to be mounted thereon with the top surface thereof along the carrying path 4 is placed with the fore end thereof being in contact with the guide plate 5.
The carriage 6 is composed, as shown in FIG. 2, of a carriage body 7, stop plates 8 attached to both sides of a top surface of the carriage body 7, a back panel 9 held between the carriage body 7 and the stop plates 8, and rollers 10, each attached through a support plate 10a to either side of a lower surface of the carriage body 7, for urging the back panel 9 upward. The back panel 9 is detachably mounted to the carriage body 7 by bringing pins 9a provided on either side thereof into free fit with pin holes 7a in the carriage body 7. Also, slide rings 7b, 7b are provided on either side of the carriage body 7 and cuts 7c are formed in the both sides of the fore end of the carriage body 7. Thus, the carriage body 7 is slidable as guided on unrepresented guide shafts parallel to the carrying path 4 through the slide rings 7b, 7b.
On the other hand, a pulley 11 is provided below the carriage 6, as shown in FIG. 1, a timing belt 4 is wound around a motor pulley 13 of motor 12 set over the rear end of the carriage 6 and also around a pulley 11, and the carriage 6 is attached to the timing belt 14. Further, a pair of upper and lower carrying rollers 15, being an upper press roller 15a and a lower drive roller 15b, are set on either side of the carrying path 4 and at a position of the fore end of the carriage 6, and the drive roller 15b is placed in the cut 7c of the carriage body 7. Also, sensors 16, 17 are provided at respective positions before and after the press roller 15a.
In this apparatus, when the optical card C is inserted through the card insert slot 1, the sensor 2 detects it to open the shutter 3, and the optical card C goes into the carrying path 4 in the guide plate 5. The sensors 16, 17 detect it in order to drive the carrying rollers 15. When the fore end of the card reaches the carrying rollers 15, it is pinched and carried between the carrying rollers 15 to be fed onto the carriage body 7 and then to be mounted on the carriage 6. When the sensor 17 detects completion of card carry, the carrying rollers 15 stop and the back panel 9 urges the optical card C against the stop panel 8, thus completing mounting of the optical card C onto the carriage 6.
Subsequently, the motor 12 is driven to move the optical card C to a recording/reproducing position located on an extension of the carrying path 4. After completion of recording/reproducing processing, the motor 12 is reversed to return the carriage 6 to the home position where it is in contact with the guide plate 5.
Another example of the conventional card carrying mechanism is one as shown in FIG. 3, in which a carriage 20 for holding the optical card C mounted thereon is slidably supported on a pair of guide shafts 21, and is attached to a belt 24 wound around pulleys 22, 23 set below the guide shafts 21, so that the carriage can translate along the carrying path in the longitudinal direction of optical card C. An optical head 25 is arranged as capable of translating in a direction perpendicular to the moving direction of the carriage 20.
A cleaning cartridge 26 and a carrying roller 27 are provided above and below the carrying path, respectively, on the insertion side of the carriage 20. Inside the cleaning cartridge 26, as shown in FIG. 4, there are two winding rollers 28, 29 extending in the direction perpendicular to the carrying direction of optical card C and a cleaning roller 31 pressed against the carrying roller 27 under a biasing force of press spring 30 between the rollers 28, 29. Thus, a belt cleaning member 32 wound between the winding rollers 28, 29 is guided between the cleaning roller 31 and the carrying roller 27 to be wound around one roller 29.
In this apparatus, when the optical card C is inserted, a card detecting sensor not shown starts driving the motor to rotate the carrying roller 27 so as to carry the optical card C in the direction of arrow A. Then, the cleaning member 32 in the cleaning cartridge 26 starts cleaning as rubbing the top surface of the optical card C.
However, an increase tendency of capacity of the Optical card is being driven these days and thus, a trend is to expand a recording surface up to limit positions on both edges in the transverse direction of the card in order to effectively utilize the recording surface. Therefore, in the case of the card carrying apparatus in the conventional examples shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the upper press roller 15a rubs the information recording surface of the optical card C upon insertion or discharge thereof because of such a positional relation that the carrying rollers 15 are set within the cuts 7c given in the carriage body 7. Such an arrangement is likely to cause dust to be attached to the recording surface or to cause scratches to be formed thereon, thus causing recording or reproducing errors. Further, when the carriage 6 returns to the home position after recording or reproduction, it collides with the press roller 15a and drive roller 15b, possibly damaging the fore end of optical card C and thus resulting in making it impossible to eject the optical card C from the carriage 6.
Since the carrying direction of optical card C is coincident with the moving direction of carriage 6, a force more than the carrying force of the carrying rollers 15 must work on the carriage body 7 in the opposite direction to the insertion direction of optical card C or the body must be locked with a force more than the carrying force, when the optical card C is introduced onto the carriage body 7 while being pinched between the carrying rollers 15 and comes into contact with a positioning stopper thereof. Therefore, greater power is necessary for the drive portion or the locking mechanism of the carriage body 7, resulting in increasing the scale of the driving apparatus. This will in turn cause an increase of the scale of the entire apparatus.
Also, the apparatus shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 has problems of cost reduction and size reduction because the cleaning cartridge 26 is composed of a lot of components and because an installing space of the cartridge is necessary.